Moonless
by Anthropos Agnostos
Summary: Sam hated nights the most. Einstein once said "I like to think the moon is there even if I am not looking at it". Thanks to the Ori, she no longer had that luxury.


**Standard Disclaimer: don't own the setting or recognizable characters, MGM does.**

* * *

Silence reigned through the forest, broken only by the sound of Sam trudging in the darkness across the snow. A normal man would be hard pressed to see his own hand in front of him, yet the SGC veteran viewed the path ahead clearly through the green fluorescence of night-vision goggles.

It didn't take her long to reach the destination: an old, gnarled oak whose boughs draped over the trail. With a grunt of effort Sam hoisted herself up a branch and climbed up as high as she could in her bulky winter gear. Settling on a sturdy limb, Carter turned off her goggles and looked up at the empty, moonless sky.

She hated nights the most. Einstein once said " _I like to think the moon is there even if I am not looking at it_ ". Thanks to the Ori, she no longer had that luxury.

* * *

P3Y-229 was a ruse. The Priors built the Second Supergate in the path of the Jaffa ship-lanes where it was impossible to miss. Combined forces of the Asgard, Tau'ri and Free Jaffa gathered around the ring, awaiting a climactic battle for the fate of the galaxy. Instead the Ori attacked where they were least expected.

The first clue that something was wrong came when the S.G.C.'s Stargate refused to dial in or out. Just a few hours later the world's media was flooded with reports of a "mysterious blue spot" appearing on the Moon.

No one was sure how the Ori managed it. Sam figured it was as simple as sending a Prior to the Moon in an Al'kesh with a Stargate. Whatever their methods were, they turned the Moon into the Third Supergate. By the time the fleet arrived it was already too late. Most of the Lunar surface was covered by the Ori's cobalt force-field, what was left of the white spot shrinking by the minute.

Carter watched helplessly from _Korolev's_ bridge as with a flash of light Earth's satellite was crushed beyond the Schwarzschild radius, forming an black hole that powered a Supergate.

After that all hell broke loose.

* * *

Sam stopped her reminiscing as something caught her attention. A single light shone in the darkness, bobbing and weaving between the trees. Quickly removing her rifle she peered through the scope for a closer look.

Five Ori soldiers tracked through the wilderness, walking with a clear purpose by the light of a lone lantern. Shuffling alongside the Ori commander was an alien creature Carter had grown to despise: a short, stout animal with tawny fur, ape-like body and a shark's head. Native to the Ori galaxy, the crusaders called them the venators. Sam called them ugly bastards.

The beast constantly flicked a long tongue from its toothy maw, tasting the air like a snake. Even at this distance the alien bloodhound could pick out her sent. Carter knew her time was short.

With a flick of the finger she switched the safety off the Vintorez rifle. Inhaleing a deep breath, Sam pulled the trigger and watched the venator double over from a gut-shot. His master didn't even realize what happened before a subsonic bullet tore his chest open. The remaining soldiers panicked and fired their staffs wildly without ever realizing where the enemy was hiding. After squeezing the trigger four more times in quick succession, Sam shouldered her rifle with grim satisfaction and gave a silent thanks to Col. Checkov. The Russian Vintorez was Chekov's parting gift to SG-1 – a light-weight, silenced sniper rifle that ended up saving their life more times than she could count.

Dropping down from the tree, Carter made her way to the bodies to strip them of anything useful. A year ago such an act would shock or disgust her. These days few things did.

* * *

The Battle of the Supergate was a slaughter. The combined firepower of two Daedalus cruisers, a dozen Free Jaffa Ha'taks and even an Asgard warship were no match for the four Ori motherships that emerged from the gate. They tore through the defenders like a hot knife through butter, yellow beams cleaving shields and obliterating decks in a single strike as swarms of agile ovoid fighters swatted F-302s and Death Gliders from the sky. In the end out of the fifteen ships sent to protect Earth twelve were reduced to orbital rubble. To the surprise of everyone onboard the surviving vessels – the barely-functional _Korolev_ , Kvasir's flagship and a Free Jaffa Ha'tak missing half its superstructure – the crusaders didn't attack Earth itself. They simply didn't have to.

On the planet millions of people who knew nothing of the Stargate or the Ori just witnessed the Moon vanish. The whole world was gripped by panic and within hours thousands of people were dead from riots, discord and mass suicides. And it only got worse.

As long as life existed on Earth the Moon was always there. It governed circadian rhythms. It controlled the tides. It affected the tilt of the planet's axis, its rotation and even the orbit around the sun. Its gravity tugged on the molten core beneath Earth's crust. Now all of it was gone.

Tokyo disappeared beneath pyroclastic flows. Central Europe was wrecked by cold fronts that saw whole cities encased in layers of snow & ice. Unseen-before heat waves set Congo alight with forest fires. Billowing clouds of lightning and hot ash spread across South America as the Andes exploded with volcanic activity.

No one knew exactly how many died, but by the time the Ori returned to Earth a year later the population was cut short by a few billion.

* * *

Jack was still asleep when Carter returned at dawn to the old ranger's cabin. Quietly shedding her coat and gear, she tip-toed towards her former commander. The old fold-out couch had seen better days, creaking & groaning as Sam laid down beside the sleeping man.

"Any trouble?" O'Neill asked automatically, still half asleep.

Sam sighed. "They found us again." She hugged her lover from behind, enjoying his warmth after the night's events. "A squad came this way. I hid the bodies but it won't be long until their commander realizes the scouts are overdue."

"Damn." O'Neill muttered under his breath, "And I was starting to like this place."

When the Crusade came to Earth the soldiers of Origin were well aware that those "touched by darkness" dwelled on this world – people whose distant ancestors coupled with the Ancients, giving rise to humans with the ATA gene. Guided by a burning desire to wipe away all traces of their first & greatest foe, the Ori ordered their Priors to track down and exterminate all "impure" humans. The priests pursued this task with zeal, heedless of any losses their troops suffered in the process. At first the SGC tried to coordinate the resistance and save as many ATA carriers as possible.

Insurgent networks and underground railroads sprung up to rescue people from Ori death-camps and deliver them to safety. Once a month Col. Chekov would brave the blockade of the planet to beam the freedmen onto the _Korolev_ , flying them to Atlantis where their genetic gifts were put to use. The city had no shortage of secrets that could only be revealed to those with Ancient genes – they only prayed that one of those secrets was a how-to guide on defeating the Ori.

But multiple Ori dreadnoughts patrolled space around Earth while the Tau'ri fleet was reduced to a single ship. It was only a matter of time before disaster struck. Col. Chekov managed two scheduled beam-outs unskaved but never made it to the third one. Without a way off world the "impure" humans had no choice but to scatter as staying in large groups only gave the Priors more targets.

Jack left his resistance cell two days after _Korolev_ 's ill-fated mission. In a move that surprised no one, the remains of SG-1 followed him.

Reluctantly, O'Neill untangled himself from Carter and got out of bed. "Try to get some rest," he said yawning "I'll wake Cam & Danny. We'll need to be out of here by 0900 if we want to stay ahead."

* * *

Yellow, cat-like eyes watched from the treeline as three men were busy stowing their belongings onto snowmobiles and booby-trapping the log cabin. Flicking its tongue in the air, the creature confirmed its suspicion: the gray-haired human by the woodshed was the prey its master sought.

At first the venator chittered in triumph but stopped suddenly to lick at the bloody hole on its hide, the injury flaring up again with pain. Like the rest of its kind, the tawny alien was nothing if not dedicated: neither the loss of its handler nor a crippling stomach-wound could stop it from tracking the Prior's target.

The beast's razor teeth chewed away the matted fur and dead flesh as its instincts instructed, exposing the still-living tissue to the pain-numbing properties of its saliva. When the ache subsided the bloodhound turned and fled into the forest, hoping its pale-faced master was pleased enough with its discovery to heal the injury.

* * *

 **Author's note: this is the first of two stories I prepared for the 2016 edition of Apocalypse Kree!**

 **To be perfectly honest, I'm not too happy with how it turned out. Writer's block kept delaying me and the final product ended up with tons of exposition. Still, hoped you at least found it entertaining.**

 **The story was based on the following 5 prompts from this year's contest:**

 **Sam/Jack. "I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it." -Albert Einstein**

 **Any. Pyroclastic flows, cannibalism, circadian rhythms, fire and ice.**

 **Any. A single light shone in the darkness.**

 **Any. Photo of the 2008 eruption of Chile's Chaitin volcano.**

 **Any. Picture of a street in Geneva after an ice storm in 2005.**


End file.
